I dont see many survival hunters around

[lmaoboat]

Well they cloud make it semi-range throwing axes or something like this, that would be a way better, we already have enough melee specs.

Yeah, at least a hybrid would have been something interesting, rather than just admitting they have no ideas for Hunter and making one spec essentially a free reroll.

[threads]

Well they cloud make it semi-range throwing axes or something like this, that would be a way better, we already have enough melee specs.

how is a gimped ranged better than a melee?

[twelvethirty]

No more room for another melee

-every raid team in legion

[Luko]

How is it spammy? It has downtime, similar to how rogues had/have to wait for energy. The spec feels extremely well done and complete. It's even better with the artifact and once you get one of the legendaries it's get even better than better.
I'd never have thought that I'd see a hunter complain about having a "spammy" spec.

Harpoon is also one of the most satisfying gap closer I've seen in WoW

I wish Carve wouldn't cost as much focus though.

I find myself constantly pushing Mongoose strike 7 or 8 times in a row. How is that not spammy?

Look, it's very possible that I'm just missing something about the rotation but what's up with the huge gaps in the playstyle? There are plenty of times when I'm just watching my character auto attack. I'm not pooling for energy or waiting for the perfect timing on anything, I'm sitting there doing nothing and waiting for shit to come off CD. I even had to put Raptor Strike back into my rotation because I was sometimes capping focus before Flanking came off CD.

I get that the spec works, but how in the world is anyone defending that this /feels/ good?

[DaHomieG]

i think theyre fun lol

[Eapoe]

I find the spec fun, and the added layer of complexity (over MM/BM) feels nice and makes me feel more involved with playing the game instead of feeling like I could watch a movie at the same time.
Also, bear in mind, we are discussing a spec(s) at the end of an xpac. 4p plays a huge roll in how the specs feel on top of not having the artifact weapon. As it stands, with instant AiS's I feel like I am waiting to do something more on MM than SV, simply because focus is always really low. I've thought about taking Mok over TA for a little more to do during SV downtime, but with the 4p proccing things, I always have Lacerate or FS to push while waiting for MB spam.
All of this will change once people start hitting max level with the weapon and new tier bonuses, so remember to take the specs with a grain of salt for the time being when discussing feel.

[Deleted]

I find myself constantly pushing Mongoose strike 7 or 8 times in a row. How is that not spammy?

Look, it's very possible that I'm just missing something about the rotation but what's up with the huge gaps in the playstyle? There are plenty of times when I'm just watching my character auto attack. I'm not pooling for energy or waiting for the perfect timing on anything, I'm sitting there doing nothing and waiting for shit to come off CD. I even had to put Raptor Strike back into my rotation because I was sometimes capping focus before Flanking came off CD.

I get that the spec works, but how in the world is anyone defending that this /feels/ good?

Mongoose spam is only in the beginning (+when you use snake thingy) and lac+flank+axes is enough to never cap focus and what's wrong with using raptor if you do? You can even use a talent to add Raptor into your rotation as a maintenance.
It's the best hunter spec we ever had so far.

On top of that, you got explosive trap which has a short CD and even shorter with the artifact (another 20% reduction) and Dragonfire which spice things up.

Steady Shot or Cobra spam was much worse, at least Mongoose is actually rewarding damage by itself and with the artifact, it'll build up +% for a huge cooldown (6 mongoose =~4500% atk power AoE with aspect over 4 secs.)

How was HFC as MM? Wasn't it basically AiS spam, hoping for thrill procs so you could spam even more? And if you didn't have enough focus, you'd spam a lame builder that did no damage. It's been like that in BRF too. Survival in BRF was heavily reliant on spamming skills too. Remember Explosive shot? Not only did it proc often, you also *had* to spend the proc immediately, unlike mongoose.
And it's not like you didn't spam AS or MS whenever you had thrill procs, right?

MM without sidewinders is even more spammy. I think I've never used a resource builder so often in my entire life in any game whatsoever. Depending on the talent choices, I can't even use AiS more than once every 30s or so, because it's so bad (focus reg-wise) without the artifact. I playtested MM without sidewinders a bit and patient sniper yielded the best DPS (if sidewinders were not available) and it's pretty much AS>MarkedS>AS>MarkedS...trueshot becomes the most annoying DPS cooldown ever, I can tell you that. At best I can squeeze in a AiS somewhere, but that'll lead to not having enough focus for Barrage and BA if I choose to pick that.

I ask you, with that in mind how could I not defend SV right now. It's the best hunter spec we had in years that doesn't have any significant downtimes during it's rotation.

[beanman12345]

I challenge you to find a single forum post from 2004-2015 that seriously asked for a melee hunter option.

And when you find that inevitable fringe-opinion post, we can then talk about finding several more so that you can back up such a ridiculous statement as "a lot of people asked for Blizzard to reconsider that playstyle".

No one played a Survival Hunter back in Vanilla for melee either, because it was shit and had no place in a spec with two (better) ranged specs. Just like then, Survival now will find no place in WoW, no matter how much they intentionally gut BM and MM in order to make SV look more appealing.

Challenge accepted

http://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/1660225089

That one took all of 3 seconds to find, so i'm sure there are many more.

[Deleted]

I dont know what is wrong with spaming skills, there was a lot of it in prev xpacs and right now i think survival has least downtime from all three specs. Almost always there is something to do.

[lmaoboat]

Challenge accepted

http://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/1660225089

That one took all of 3 seconds to find, so i'm sure there are many more.

Wow, saw a post in there I made 5 years ago.

[TheCount]

I like the spec overall, mind you mine is only 72.

1 thing I would like to point out though. Can they change the name of the spec? Survival just seems lacking in terms of the specs identity. Something like Savager seems more in line with the spec theme.

[Demeia]

Let's deconstruct this idea a little now if we want to think of raid balance:

Before Legion:

Mechanically BM works differently to and MM/SV which were pretty similar, meaning that hunters pretty much chose between BM or whichever of MM or Surv was FotM. Effectively there were only ever 2 active hunter specs at any point during this game.

After Legion:

Hunters can now, in addition to deciding to go BM choose between ranged and melee. Effectively there are now 3 hunter specs on the table. This allows raids to optimise based on requirements without people having to switch characters.

The artifact system, of course, discourages this kind of behavior. But as a melee--usually a pretty decently geared melee--I have a hell of a time finding random groups because they are always looking for ranged. It would be rather extraordinary to be in a situation where a raid said, "hey, we need melee!" My group suffered because we had such a high number of melee and many add fights simply punish melee groups (who actually have to stop dpsing and move to the new target), something Ion was pretending not to understand in a recent interview.

Edit: Some Rogues were hoping for a ranged spec but a number said, "no, because that will become our ONLY spec. Who wants more melee in raids?"

[Noocta]

The artifact system, of course, discourages this kind of behavior. But as a melee--usually a pretty decently geared melee--I have a hell of a time finding random groups because they are always looking for ranged. It would be rather extraordinary to be in a situation where a raid said, "hey, we need melee!" My group suffered because we had such a high number of melee and many add fights simply punish melee groups (who actually have to stop dpsing and move to the new target), something Ion was pretending not to understand in a recent interview.

Edit: Some Rogues were hoping for a ranged spec but a number said, "no, because that will become our ONLY spec. Who wants more melee in raids?"

Well, atleast Rogue is literally the best melee for raiding and has pretty much always be. So they have that going for them. Really good reputation.

[Tsimp]

Pretty sure approximately 0 people were asking for melee hunters.

I've been asking for melee hunters for a decade. Enjoying it a lot.

[Lyraat]

Mongoose spam...
Steady Shot or Cobra spam was much worse...
Wasn't it basically AiS spam...
MM without sidewinders is even more spammy...

Uh, hunters have been spamming something since, well, BC at least. I didn't play Classic, so I can't say what happened there. Steady, Cobra, whatever, that's what we did, that's what we have done for a long, long time. That's one thing that hasn't been discussed much: the paradigmatic shift from ABC (Always Be Casting) to...er, whatever we have now. That shift is, among other reasons, why I hate how hunters currently play. I cannot unlearn 10 years of muscle memory in a week. I find myself hitting buttons--any attack--because that's what hunters have done for a decade.

When you roll a class, you accept their strengths, weaknesses, and idiosyncrasies. I'm trying a mage. Standing and nuking is fun, being squishy not so much. But that's part and parcel of the class. Hunters have always been the mobile ranged class. ABC and Death by 1000 Needles, that's us. Whining about spamming buttons is like whining about being ranged and not having a melee spec: Please fuck off as you clearly should be playing another class. Let those of us who enjoy this playstyle keep it. There are other classes to play.

I've been asking for melee hunters for a decade. Enjoying it a lot.

...Well, I should say, Enjoy hunters now, the vocal "melee hunters!" minority. You whined hard and long enough to get Blizzard to break everything about hunters. If the rest of us knew SV-to-melee was being even passingly discussed by the devs, we would have been screaming NO! But nobody knew until the change was announced, so we the majority got fucked over thanks to the vocal minority. Enjoy an essentially new class. At least Demon Hunters got a starting zone.

[Fincayra]

Pretty sure approximately 0 people were asking for melee hunters.

Chuck Norris was.

[Noocta]

I don't understand why people are mad at Survival being melee. Maybe you didn't ask about it but you weren't asking for survival to be something unique anyway. Survival has NEVER had a real identity. It's always been " Kinda like MM but with dots "

[shadowmouse]

Melee hunter jokes aside, I remember back when Hunters had melee attacks and I remember wishing that more could be done with those tools. For me, that's what the current Survival build offers. I may switch in and out of that spec depending on my mood, but I like having the different option available.

[Dug]

It's cool but I reckon most people who play hunter to begin with aren't huge fans of melee and would rather stay ranged.

[Gaaz]

Melee hunter jokes aside, I remember back when Hunters had melee attacks and I remember wishing that more could be done with those tools. For me, that's what the current Survival build offers. I may switch in and out of that spec depending on my mood, but I like having the different option available.

Hunters had melee attacks for a reason back then. They could not shoot at anything closer than 5m. Now, the game has long evolved past that.
And by the way, I think that asking for a melee hunters most people did not think of a completely melee spec, but something that resempled old hunters - ranged class with melee backup when things got too close and personal.